Couldn't sleep last night

I didn't sleep all that great last night, but I wasn't all that upset about it for some reason. I tossed and turned a little bit, got up several times during the night to use the bathroom, and after being up for about an hour, I wrote a few emails on my iPhone to a friend. It was some okay writing, so I thought I'd share my thoughts with my friend, with you. Nothing earth-shattering but I haven't been blogging much, maybe it's because of Facebook, and I wanted to prove that I have been writing something, even if it's just silly little emails.

Here are the highlights:

2:58 a.m.
Moony moon moon. What a gorgeous night.

We had a giant (really, really) raccoon in the backyard on Monday. He was fearless, snuffled his way all over the yard. Franny and Dora went nuts.

I can't sleep. Obviously.

Sent from my iPhone

3:28 a.m.
Dora just cruised by. She's such a little princess, in her teeny tiny kitty-cat high heeled shoes. She didn't stay long, I think she was checking on Patrick, making sure I'm treating him right. She lets me pet her more these days but he's her man.

Franny is no princess. She's a pest, a circus performer, a screen door climber, a giant stomach (we call her Sto-Match), babycat, a perfect small headed Magic Cat. She's the world's worst hunter of the cat kingdom, but so enthusiastic about it, you hate to point that out. I love her and hope she lives forever. Yesterday I was sitting in the baby's room, in my new chair, with her on my lap, and she was trying to eat my shirt buttons. I think she's a genius.

Pregnancy hormones right now have me all smoothed out. I'm pretty happy; I feel good about things. I worry that after the baby comes I'll get depressed or sad, which I know happens to people and is perfectly normal, and that I won't be a Good Mother, but even the worry has no sharp edges. Right now I feel great, and I see that continuing. I just wish I could sleep.

3:47 a.m.
Tonight I made Patrick rotate our mattress because somehow the giant mattress label was at the top of the bed, and I could feel it through the sheets, and it's been bugging me forever. But when I woke up about an hour ago I realized it's because now I'm sleeping on his side of the bed, upside down, and that's weird. And now I'm hungry.
Yawn.

There was a fast-food Mexican place in west LA on or around Olympic and Bundy in a minimall next to a 7-11 that I can't remember the name of that had the best taquitos. I want some now, with the fluffy guacamole they made, and sour cream, and a large Dr Pepper. I think that joint closed at least 5 years ago, probably way more. The French bistro on SM Blvd that me and Frederique used to go to closed. I just discovered that tonight. They had a yummy warm beet salad. And made terrific gin & tonics even though I had no idea what a good gin was (Frederique would choose for me. Usually Tanqueray, I think).

Well since I could do this forever I'd better try sleeping again. I wish you could hear Patrick snore. The light on my new clock radio can be completely turned off. That seems like an innovation clock radios could've made years ago.

At this point I guess I fell asleep. I slept hard, and for a long time - I didn't wake up until the phone rang, at around 10:45. I don't even remember waking up when Patrick went to work, and I always wake up when he goes to work, for my goodbye kiss and to tell him to have a good day and to not drive like a maniac. The phone call was from the repair people who are coming out to fix our refrigerator, which hasn't been staying cool. I've got a ton of yogurt going bad. They're not coming until tomorrow, so I need to clean the thing out, and I haven't been looking forward to it. And now, though I have eaten a banana, I need to get dressed and figure out what I'm going to have for lunch.

I have no cutesy closer for this post. Huh. 

I haven't blogged in ages (a week?) and I thought I'd better check in before anybody thought I'd gone off and had my baby or something, because, nope, I'm still here at 38 weeks and some days.

I'm still feeling great.

I had a check up today, where the doctor did a quickie ultrasound to verify that little no-name (more on that in a second) was head down, as she suspected (he is). It was a trip to see him, all blown up and big now. He's practically real, isn't he.

So see, we thought we'd come up with a name, but it turns out that that name was one of (if not the) most popular name of 2010 (yep, you guessed it, unknowingly we'd chosen "Aidan"), so now we've turned back to the drawing board. Time's getting short, though, so we better figure this out. Soon.

The baby's room is mostly ready for him (he needs pictures on the walls and decorative items; it looks a little plain), we successfully installed the car seats in both cars (and had the Lakewood Sheriffs examine to make sure we did them right), my hospital bag is finally packed... so we're ready to go.

I've been off work for about a week and a half, and I have to admit: I love it. Loving it. Could not love it more. I haven't had such an extended amount of time off in forever, and though I know it will all come to an end when the baby comes and my new life begins, I'm really enjoying it as much as I can.

So. I'll keep you posted on what happens next.

Driving lesson of the day: merging*

When merging, one should remember the following simple rule:

The car in front, stays in front.

This means that if you and I are in a two lane on-ramp merging to one lane on the freeway, and the front of your car is ahead of mine, you win. I don't care what lane you're in. On the other hand, I'm in front of you? I win. If you speed up to pass me, and then you're suddenly thrust into the existing traffic on the freeway, and then have to slow down, and now I have to brake because you have a need to BEAT ME, that's suddenly a dangerous situation for everybody. Quit it. There are spaces for your car if you are courteous, watch the flow of traffic, and use your head.

Other important things to remember:

1. Match your speed to the cars already on the freeway. They're the real winners; you're just some loser joining the party after the fact.
2. Speeding up to pass me makes you an asshole. "Ooh, now you're in front, asshole," will be the thought in my mind. That extra 10 feet wasn't yours to begin with, but now that you're there, Ima let you keep it, since it clearly means more to you than me.
3. You being an asshole doesn't change the way I drive. Knock yourself out.
4. If you're already on the freeway (congratulations! you're a winner!), stay out of the far right lane unless you're getting off or otherwise have a real need to be there. You make merging that much harder for the losers trying to get on the road, and you're just in the way. Get over. Pay attention.

Last but not least:

Use your turn signal for every lane change and every time you turn. If you're pointing your car at me, I need to know about it. And then, just like you turn off the light when you leave the room (should turning on or off a light in a room ever be a matter of life or death), turn it off when you're done.

Thanks!

Drive safe!

*I possess no qualifications for writing this piece except that I love to drive, and I do it a lot. I've never been in a major accident. I put over 18,000 miles a year on my car, and I do it all armed only with an 80 GB iPod Classic (black). Also, my brother-in-law works for Cal-Trans (<-- not a qualification, but I just thought I'd throw that in).

P.S. Today's post was inspired by Cheap Trick's album "Dream Police," which I started listening to last night on my way to my breastfeeding class, but finished this morning on the drive in to work. "I Know What I Want" is pure, no. 1 driving music perfection. Try it.

Re-reading a book

I first bought and read this book about 18 years ago. I remember picking it up from the tiny Parenting section we had at the Crown Books in the Culver Center, and standing there for about 2 hours straight, reading it. Maybe I didn't read it all in one sitting (or standing) but that's what I remember.

It was the first Anne Lamott book I'd ever read... I'm not sure what drew me to it, but whatever it was (the cute little baby on the cover, maybe!), I really enjoyed it. I think she wrote it before her full-on conversion to Christianity, though I'm not sure if she was still an alcoholic at the time. Anne Lamott has a voice that I really admire and that has always made me laugh and think. When I found out all those months ago that I was pregnant, one of the first thoughts I had was to re-read this book, but for whatever reason, I put it off. This book is about her experiences with her son Sam, and she makes having a little baby boy feel very real and terrifying, and doable, in a crazy way.

Tonight I finally resolved to get to reading. Or I should say, re-reading.

I'm ready for my tesseract now, please.

I know I've got a reputation as a chronically late person, so it may surprise you to learn that I am capable of (and indeed, compelled to) keeping track on a mile-by-mile basis of the minutes required to complete my commute every morning.

It's about a 20 mile drive from my home to work, and so herein starts the (often incorrect, it should go without saying) calculations. You might think, if you live anywhere other than Los Angeles, that a 20 mile drive, most of which is conducted on the so-called "freeway," would take anywhere from 20-25 minutes. I mean, 60+ miles per hour seems like a reasonable speed, especially at 5:30 in the morning, right?

Duh. You would be wrong. Dead wrong. And I would be late, which I am, almost every day.

(Even Google maps says this is a 30-50 minute drive, so clearly I am delusional in my insistence that this drive should take 20 minutes. CLEARLY.)

For one thing, the first 1/2 mile of my commute through my neighborhood requires me to either drive out of my way down my own street to make a somewhat illegal left turn across four lanes (four usually empty lanes, but in the rain and/or fog we've been having, to say nothing of the blackness of the mornings and the death wishes of some of my neighbors, those four lanes are treacherous) or to wait three minutes for a light to turn green. On my schedule, three minutes is a lifetime. This light likes to mess with me, sometimes almost about to turn... and then at the last minute, it changes it's mind and stays red. If you watch the opposite traffic signal, or the "walk" sign, you will see it blink, blink, blink, turn solid, even the street light itself turns yellow, as if to say, hey, cross traffic, slow down, this little lady wants to - nope, staying red for two more minutes, sorry. I've been tempted to run that red light when I'm particularly late and the morning is particularly solitary, but no, I would never do anything quite so irresponsible. Oh no. Not me.

After that, I'm finally on the freeway about 3 miles later, and that particular freeway has a surprising reputation, at 5:30 in the morning, of being pretty free flowing (if there's traffic here and I've left later than usual, it's at this point when I start thinking about calling in late to work). I spend the next 7 or 8 miles speeding along at a nice clip, watching the clock the whole time, knowing that at this pace, I could be at work in... 15 minutes? (My lack of math skills being well-known by now, I'm sure, so bear with me.)

It all sounds doable, and thinking positive is certainly a skill needed for navigating the roads of Los Angeles (and avoiding road rage and/or high blood pressure), and so for a few moments, until I come to the connector from that freeway to the next, I'm pretty confident and emotionally prepared to be on time (being on time requires advanced planning just as being late does) - driving in freeflowing traffic will do that to a person. But then - the connector. That blasted connector. It goes around and then under the freeway you just left (and there's a big white bird-like image painted on the underside of that freeway; I haven't had any luck finding out what that's all about, so if you know, email me, because I've been curious for about 3 years), and there's nice green foliage/weeds on either side, which you have plenty of time to observe, because most of the time, you're going nowhere fast. The next freeway is older and narrower and more heavily traveled and the merging skills of some of the other drivers on the road leave much to be desired, so it could take awhile to finally be moving along with the rest of the world.

These past few weeks, when my fellow commuters have obviously taken some time off, changing from one freeway to another has been a breeze, a delight, an exercise in making a smooth steady left turn to the left (what, you think you can make a smooth steady left turn to the right? What are you? High?), changing directions from mostly north to slightly more north, and west, but on normal early mornings, sitting on this interchange or whatever the dudes at CalTrans would call it, which is, I'm sure, less than half a mile in length, becomes the point when all my careful calculations, my plotted speed, my joyous inner voice whispering "I'm going to be on time!" become "Oh, shit, I'm totally late."

And now the mathematics begin running backward, in that way that it does for those of us who read "A Wrinkle in Time" and only pretended to understand the science behind it all (or I should say, pretended to pretend, as that book, and everything in it, including the famous tesseract, is totally fiction). Now my countdown changes from, "I have 8 miles to go, and 12 minutes to get there," which is a positive, to "If I can continue at this speed [usually 35 miles an hour once I've merged onto the new freeway] I will only be 10 minutes late, but if I can speed up to 60 in the next 3 miles..." to "I will be on time to work if I can get this baby up to 120 miles per hour."

You should know: I drive a 6 year old, four-door, 4 cylinder Honda Accord. I believe the speedometer goes up to 120, but I've never taken it past 90 (or was it 95?), so at this point, that 120 miles per hour is all theoretical. Anyway, the amount of road necessary for that manuever would be wasted. And now I'm all, "Okay, I'll only be... five minutes late..." "I'm only 8 minutes late..." And there starts another typical weekday morning. This is my routine four days a week, pretty much every morning. The drive home is another story, and usually takes longer.

However, on a personal note, I only have 6 more days of work until I'm off on maternity leave, and as long as the baby doesn't come early, doesn't come while I'm on the road, or at work, I'm pretty excited about that (the hospital is almost exactly at the mid-point between home and work, but I've read that driving while having contractions is a bad idea, go figure). Also, it would be so lovely to sleep past 7 for like 10 days in a row.

Because I know when those days are up, and our little baby comes to stay, we won't be getting any extra sleep at all. And I'd like to stock up while I can.

I think Oprah stole my haircut. Or am I wearing a wig?

Granted, I could spend a little more time on my hair to get it this shiny and under control, and also, I think I had this haircut originally in 1984 and hey, I don't look this good in orange, and to tell you the truth, I really hate Oprah most of the time - but this is my haircut. Somebody at the Aveda salon in Long Beach must like Oprah because this is the exact haircut I had last, and while I kind of like it most of the time, I've made a personal committment not to get any more haircuts until all these crazy layers grow out.

Reality shows: drug rehab

I have no idea who this woman is.
I did a Google Image search for
Frankie Lons, and while this sort of looks like the
woman on Celebrity Rehab,
how would I know if it wasn't?

There's an article in the LA Times about Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew on VH1, and Intervention, on A&E (click on the title of today's post and you'll go to the article). It's not a great article (What! the LA Times wrote a superficial article?), but it reminded me that I've been annoyed by these shows a lot lately. Not so much Intervention; my only complaint with that show is that I'm usually watching the last three minutes wondering how they're going to fit everything in (and yet they always do). I have no business commenting on addiction or recovery, but I watched "Celebrity Rehab" this weekend, and saw an interaction between Shelly Sprague, one of the people on staff at the recovery center, and one of the so-called celebrities that really bugged me.

The "celebrity" in question was Frankie Lons, who is always referred to as the mother of somebody apparently more famous than she is (but I've never heard of either of them). The celebrities were having lunch at Tender Greens with Bob Forrest and Shelly in Hollywood, where they had been taken, apparently in an attempt to intermingle with real-world temptations (not at Tender Greens; I'm talking about being in Hollywood. I recently went to Tender Greens in Culver City and I think I fell in love. I'm ready to go back. So for me, showing the celebrities at Tender Greens was a trigger. Oh, those tricksy rehab people!). One of the actual celebrities, Leif Garrett, did have the reaction I think Bob was expecting, and he tried to, I don't know, order a beer or walk out. That was sort of underplayed so that the following could be focused on:

While they were eating lunch, Frankie wanted to know why she couldn't have a non-alcholic beer, and instead of answering the question, Shelly got confrontational with her and responded "That's a question only an addict would ask."

Maybe so, Shelly, but why don't you also explain it to her instead of just being sarcastic and dismissive? Maybe Frankie doesn't understand that there actually is alcohol in so-called "near-beer"? Maybe she still doesn't understand her addiction or what her reaction to near-beer would be? Maybe there's a better answer, like explaining why it's a bad idea or why you think that's a straight up dumb question? I don't know if there was a deeper conversation off-camera, but what was shown was antagonistic instead of helpful.

The show has been getting on my nerves not only because I think the experts are terrible listeners or because I question the celebrity status of people like Frankie Lons or Rachel Uchitel (or Jason Davis, or that guy who was on TV a long time ago, or that other guy named Jason), but because I wonder how much help these people are actually getting, which makes the whole thing feel like a waste of time. Seeing the story of that guy Jason Davis isn't helping anybody, and neither is Rachel Uchitel, who suffers from "love addiction" (also, apparently she has a degree in psychology, which proves a point I'm not going to make right now). These are just people who want to be on television. I truly believe that.

Drew has been annoying me for years on Loveline, where he's often super impatient to the slow-ass kids who call in (it's true that some of those kids need help forming a sentence, but Drew's on-air persona has become cranky and mean; his own perceived "celebrity-dom" seems to affect his ability to actually talk to people in a non-condescending manner). He brings some of that confrontational style to this show, and while I think these adults should be able to handle it, so many of them are stunted and helpless in a way that's sad and a little disgusting that I think his attempts to get smart with them backfire because they're too stupid to get it.

So there you go. Rather than attempting to write a closing paragraph that's clever and insightful, I'm just going to end this post abruptly and by calling the hapless celebrities on "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" stupid. I feel great about that decision.

This is strangely timely, but only my friends on Facebook (Cindy!) who have been paying attention to my status updates will understand why.

The woman upon whom Liesl von Trapp in the movie "The Sound of Music" was based died yesterday.

(That sentence right there is proof of why I'm not a professional writer. This one, too, perhaps.)

Click on the title of this post to read the article.

For my photographer friends,

The NY Times posted a story about the end of Kodachrome film and processing that's very interesting. Not enough pictures, but still, good.

Click on the title of this post and you'll be taken to the story.

My morning reading - updated

A while ago, I read a few articles in the LA Times about a little girl named January Schofield, who has a serious and severe mental illness. The Great and Mighty Oprah also did a segment on her, and I'm sure other news organizations as well. The story made me sad because she's so young and because her family seems so dysfunctional (her father, for one, seems a little bit to me like a publicity hound; he's supposedly writing a book about her, and he keeps a blog about her in which he writes disturbingly personal details about their lives). Anyway, every once in awhile I do a google search to see what's going on with her, if anything.

Today during that search, I happened upon a blog called "Incorrect Pleasures." I've only been reading it for a little bit, so I have a very light grasp on the author's point of view, but she (?) wrote about Jani (January Schofield's nickname) in an interesting way from a perspective that I don't know anything about (the author says she has a condition called "synesthesia," and suspects Jani might have it as well). The author of the blog makes a lot of statements that sound logical and scientific but I don't know enough (anything) about the subject or her to be sure if they're true. That said, it's definitely interesting reading.

One of the other topics the author writes about is Syd Barrett, and though I know I told you that I wasn't really interested in Syd a few days ago, I've just started reading her piece on him, and it's pretty good.

I love this quote, which actually made me laugh, and made me want to tell you about what I've been reading:

Pink Floyd went on to become massively popular and commercially successful, their style evolving towards progressive rock, a popular musical genre that would enable millions of dim young men with limited prospects to experience the feeling of intellectual exhilaration without the necessity to read, learn or do anything much.

I'll keep reading and let you know what I think at the end.

Conclusion:

It was definitely a very good, thought-provoking article. The author (who uses a pseudonym for the blog and so is anonymous) appears knowledgeable on lots of subjects related to mental illness and autism and that kind of thing, and I only say "appears" because these are subjects that interest me but in which I am not qualified to judge anyone's qualifications, if you understand what I'm saying.

As I said before, the name of the blog is "Incorrect Pleasures," and here's a link, if you're interested. She writes on many subjects, and I think I'll be back for more soon. I am now totally interested in synesthesia. It's fascinating. Here's a Wikipedia listing of people who have/had it.

This is awesome

From the NY Times, a post about a scammer, two lovers (maybe), and a poem that will never be.

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/a-day-with-an-e-mail-scammer/

He's gotta ticket to ride

Last week my iPod was acting funny and started playing songs from my mother's playlist, which it has been specifically instructed (over and over again) not to do.

Mom's music runs along the lines of her favorite praise & worship recordings, Sandi Patty, Don Moen, old-school country, Marc Anthony (don't ask me how he got in there but she loves him, especially his hit "I Need to Know," which shows up in my Top 25 Played playlist all the time), and that sort of thing. When I bought her iPod, I also loaded it with stuff my boss recommended. Some of it my mom likes, and some of it she doesn't (she wasn't impressed with Il Divo, for example, and I really don't think you can fault her for that). For laughs, I included a Carpenter's disk (my boss lived in Hollywood in the 70s, and I think that has something to do with her taste in music. She's also a big fan of Heart, CSN and, other gems from that time period). I think it's a best of CD but I don't remember the title.

Anyway, while my iPod was punking me, the Carpenters' cover of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride" came on.

Apparently this was a hit song for them, and all I can say is, were all those people drugged? Incapacitated? Hooked up to machines? Unable to choose for themselves?

Most of us know "Ticket to Ride" as an upbeat song about a breakup, right? Sure, "upbeat" and "breakup" are probably words that don't belong in the same sentence, but John and Paul did a good job bringing the whimsy (though according to Wikipedia, Paul didn't do much writing as far as this song is concerned; I'll leave that argument to their heirs and the Beatles scholars).

In her version, Karen Carpenter successfully sucks all the fun out of the song, and I swear to god, as I was driving down the 5 freeway when it came on, I got a little scared. It's really a creepy version.

The way she sings those lyrics, I couldn't figure out if she was glad the guy ("the boy that's driving me mad...") had split on her, or if maybe, just maybe, she had something to do with it. I mean, at the end of the song, I started thinking maybe Karen was considering killing him.

Wouldn't it make the Carpenters a lot more interesting if Karen had secretly been a serial killer? Seriously, I could get into that story.

And after all we're only ordinary men.

Over the weekend, I read the book "Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd" by Mark Blake. I've been on a bit of a Pink Floyd tear lately, and I wanted more after watching a couple of documentaries on Netflix (which I had actually already seen).

I chose this one because it gets great reviews on Amazon (one reader said "This is by far the best book on this band," and if that's not a plug one shouldn't ignore, I don't know what is)... and because the library had it.

I know. I'm not very discerning.

Anyway, aside from the documentaries, this is the only book I've ever read on the Floyd (I love referring to them now as "The Floyd;" it makes me feel very English for some reason, and a little old, which is surprisingly not bothering me in this case), and though the library is still currently holding a copy of Nick Mason's memoir ("Inside Out"), I'm not sure if I'm going to pick it up.

Why?

Well.

Mark Blake clearly did an excellent job researching and compiling information and interviews and quotes and stories from all sorts of disparate sources, but there's a lot of repetition, a ton of unsubstantiated opinion, and a lot of tiny little anecdotes that never really add up to anything. Also, when the guy had to write a sentence from scratch, I wasn't all that convinced he was up to the job. I mean, I don't want to sound too harsh, but there could've been some better editing going on.

Also, though I guess for most fans, and for the band themselves (so I realize that what I'm about to say is probably going to piss somebody off), it's true that the important character in all the Pink Floyd history is the ghost of Syd Barrett, and while I think Syd's story is tragic and the early stuff interesting and I see that his presence was inspirational and integral to the band and their writing... the truth is I'm just not very interested in him (well, look who needs an editor now?). It seems like a huge waste, what happened to him, and it's nice that the band took care of him financially after (rightfully) kicking him out and getting on with it, and Roger Waters obviously needed a subject to obsess about... but the guy, as cool as he was, wasn't a genius. Those early songs are fun but not the best stuff Floyd ever put out.

(Yes, I am imagining you throttling me, you 21st century music nuts who are discovering "Bike" and "See Emily Play" for the first time, or you people who are cooler than I am who find that stuff fascinating. I thank Jay Schwartz for that mix tape he gave me in the 10th grade that I'm sure I've talked about before, for introducing me to the early songs, but I'm sorry, "Candy and a Currant Bun" didn't change my life or anything.)

So to spend almost half the book talking about him, telling what felt like an endless number of stories about Syd and his antics and his wardrobe and his girlfriends and his painting and how beautiful he was and how people were into him (Mick Jagger!)... it just got to be too much. I went into the book curious about him and came out overwhelmed with information that may or may not even be true. Now, I'm probably the exception, I get that. You might like to read a hundred stories about his ghostly appearances at Pink Floyd gigs after David Gilmour took over, or how he shaved off all his facial hair or how he showed up at the studio while the band was recording "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and nobody recognized him, or how he was supposedly locked in a linen closet/bathroom by his flatmates... but those stories don't add up to any real insight. The guy had nothing to say for himself and just one interview or snippet of first-hand clarity would've been worth all the stories about him not succeeding in the studio after he was ditched by his mates. And yes, I get that this lack of information is what makes everyone fiendish for more. But not me. The guy lived, he died, and he chose never to say anything for himself, and that's done. The rest of it is just... stories. He's a character, and yeah, that's interesting, but in the end you get nothing because it could all be made up or misinterpreted.

So.

After that part, I hoped the book would supply meatier descriptions of the recording process (how they actually did all that stuff, with the tape all over the recording studio, the technical stuff), or the creative processes that the band went through, but nope, other than saying (rather relentlessly) that Roger Waters is a workhorse (and probably a bullying asshole), and that David Gilmour (who comes off as passive-aggressive) isn't, and that Nick Mason couldn't handle a lot of the drum parts and bought a lot of cars, and that Rick Wright wasted a lot of time not being in the the studio by being "depressed about his failed marriage[s]," not a whole lot of insight occurs in this book. You could pretty much get that information from watching a 45 minute documentary on the making of "Dark Side of the Moon" (and Mark seems to get off on the fact that for the re-release, they added a "The" in front of the album title). That they don't get along and bitterly argued and and pettily kept score about who was more instrumental to the band's recordings and still acted like children with a shiny toy ("Pink Floyd is mine, it's mine I say!") in their 50s and 60s... well, that's nothing new.

The truth is, I'm a fan, but I guess not a very loyal one (I own nothing past "The Wall," though I did listen to "The Division Bell" a lot when it came out because Drew liked it). I think the superficial information I had before reading this book was really all I needed. I listened to the early songs like "Arnold Layne" and "Scarecrow" on the way to work just to brush up... and then decided that "Dark Side of the Moon" was more appropriate for a rainy commute, and when I arrived at work this morning with "Time" ticking away, having read this book made me no more and no less happy with what was blaring out of my car's speakers.

Lamaze, a dream, and a little man with a gun in his hand

Patrick and I started taking Lamaze classes last month - there are five classes, each three hours long. Three hours seems a bit excessive, since the classroom is small and the chairs are uncomfortable, but the information is really great. We've been to three of them. It's actually fun, and very interesting, and I love the teacher, who is enthusiastic, caring, funny, remembers all our names each week, and says "underwears" instead of "underwear." You might be surprised at how many times she has to reference one's... underwear during the course of the class. Or maybe you wouldn't be.

We've seen, I think, 4 birth videos, all with varying degrees of gore and guts (shown in progressive order), and it's smart the way the class is laid out. We've seen real live births; they started out with a nice over-the-shoulder view where everything went perfectly, and moved on down the line, so far, to one where variations on the perfect birth occur. There are about 12 couples in our class, and aside from one dude who insists on chatting with his pretty wife/girlfriend while we're trying to listen, it seems like a nice group of people. We appear to be the oldest people by about 10 years but I could be wrong; I really need to get my color done.

Anyway, last night I had a dream about being in labor. I was in the hospital, with two nurses, a younger one and an older one. They both had reddish hair, so I could be thinking about my neighbor Terie and her daughter Kacie, who are both nurses in real life, and people I wouldn't mind having around when the real thing finally happens. Patrick was napping (that snake!), and the two nurses were walking me around the room, while I swayed back and forth every once in awhile. My back was hurting in real life too yesterday (and this morning), and that motion seemed to help. It appeared to be very early in labor, or I was doing everything right, because I wasn't in a lot of pain or anything. The dream didn't go any further, it was just that one little part of it. There was no pushing, no strain, and no baby.

I liked having that dream, though, because even though the Lamaze is supposed to be calming us down about the big day, and showing us coping mechanisms for the pain and teaching us that we don't need to be afraid of it, the truth is, I'm still pretty scared. Emotionally I've kind of been a wreck this week (my sister-in-law asked me last night in between numbers at my niece and nephews Christmas program if I've started crying at TV commercials, and the answer is a huge YES, though, to be fair, I kind of did that before I got pregnant. But yes, pretty much everything elicits teary eyes from me right now, especially the aforementioned birthing videos we watch in Lamaze), and I'm afraid I'm going to be a big baby, unable to get the job done without a big freak-out. I'm sure that's a natural thing and not a sign that I'm a bad person or going to be a bad mother, but knowing that one's fear is normal doesn't really help alleviate it, if you know what I mean. Seeing myself, if only in a dream, if only in a moment absent of distress, calmly performing my Lamaze positions was a good sign. I need to get in "I can do it!" mode. I have 7 weeks to get there.

The rest of my dream was me accompanying some young woman I knew briefly in my 20s named Chelsea (I kissed my ex-boyfriend for the first time at her house; there were about 5 of us hanging out drinking beers and, for some reason, playing tag) to her ancestral home, which was a huge beautiful mansion, where the people living there refused to admit us and made us use a side entrance and told her she wasn't welcome there, and then we left in a huff and drove to Hollywood, where we went to a blues performance by Patrick's friend Art Harris, an amazingly talented guitarist and singer who goes by the name Artwork Jamal. You can check his website out here. He's incredible.

And, as just an aside, today I was smart and brought in my iPod and earphones and I am going to drown out the incessant chatting of one of my co-workers with the Minutemen! Patrick loaded my iPod with 4 of their albums (The Politics of Time, Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat, the Punchline [my favorite; I love the title song so much], and What Makes a Man Start Fires). I can't wait. In fact, her voice is filling the room right now, and this seems like the perfect time to start Operation Drown-Out... I think we'll start with Buzz or Howl. I listened to the Punch Line while sitting in traffic.

More discarded Facebook status updates:

Irene Casarez Palma:

• is getting a little tired of people commenting on my newly acquired "waddle."
• didn't sleep all that great last night in spite of the ideal conditions (it rained).
• the other night I woke up at 1:30 convinced that it was time for Patrick to get up for work. He agreed with me, expecting me to just go back to sleep, but instead I kept waking him up, saying, "Pat, it's time to get up." Finally he explained that it was only 2 a.m. I went back to sleep and woke up the next day very confused.
• I'm sick and tired of getting up in the pitch black morning.
• finally cleaned the baby's closet out. Threw away a lot of stuff I had no business keeping.
• found a bunch of photos of Drew's family and wondering if it would be appropriate to send them to him. I haven't spoken to him in years, though that last conversation was relatively friendly.
• wonders why one of my co-workers feels the need to speak to me everytime she leaves the office. She's a nice lady but I'm not really required to be verbally informed of her whereabouts at every moment of the day. Write it down and we'll all be happy.
• I need a nap.
• When I started making this list of discarded FB status updates, I should've dated them. I think the oldest is at least two years old. This current list is from December 6, 2010.
• In less than 8 weeks I'm going to be somebody's mother.

...

• mitigating that weird tired emotional feeling by watching "Concert for George" again. "Arpan" = good for whatever ails you

...

• wishes all the City Garage-ers good luck at the LA Weekly awards tonight
• hopes you call and make a reservation for "The School For Wives" playing at City Garage, Saturday and Sundays (310) 319-9939. You won't regret it. Also, The Bourgeois Gentilhomme is playing Fridays only!
• did indeed buy the piccolo she mentioned a long time ago that she wanted and loves, loves, loves it
• is thinking about things she shouldn't be thinking about
• told someone to "fuck off" last night who she REALLY hopes doesn't take her seriously; though, chances are good that this person didn't even notice (which is part of the reason I was so mad; yes, this is confusing)
• needs to get to the gym again
• wants a massage
• needs a massage
• is listening to Kings of Leon, The Bird and the Bee, Deerhunter, Love and Rockets, and Radiohead almost to the exclusion of anything else
• is getting a bit sick of reading about Frank Lloyd Wright's private life. Sorry, T.C. Boyle. Maybe I'll pull out "Budding Prospects" again instead
• is probably going to have popcorn for dinner again tonight
• is a bit stressed out about this jury duty business. Being on a case is a little scary
• wants to play her flute
• needs to play her flute
• has to go to work tomorrow instead of jury duty and is actually kinda glad
• is really enjoying her BareMinerals makeup

...

• may have a fat ass, questionable style, rampant self-deprecating humor and a dim inner light - but sometimes I can be damn funny
• will never wear high heels to a flute concert again - thus, all my pants will be hemmed
• is watching the movie "Elf" and finding it surprisingly amusing
• is sure she's seen people wearing more questionable outfits at Panda Express on a Sunday night. While technically not my pajamas, I will admit that they have played that part in the past. Look: I was at least wearing a bra
• is waiting for the dude who bought my piccolo on ebay to leave (positive, preferably) feedback
• is doing laundry
• hates doing laundry
• is selling her Armstrong piccolo on ebay
• needs a new piccolo stand
• Flute World here I come
• is supposed to be following a rather restrictive diet since last month and hasn't started yet
• has a strange feeling
• stayed up too late Thursday, Friday and Saturday

...

• just told her mother to be brave, and to pray that God knows what [s]he's doing
• feels a little funny about that

...

• has a feeling that rainbow in the sky ends... at her house!
• wonders why are there so many songs about rainbows
• absolutely does not brake for rainbows
• figures that song came out right about at the same time she stopped liking the B-52s so much
• wonders if by secretly loading a bunch of damn Data Rock songs onto her iPod, Patrick has broken some divine rule
• is walking twice a day, four days a week with the girls at work
• thinks that Metallica should have named their new album "Dethklok"
• won an iPod Shuffle! (no, for real! It wasn't a pop up!)
• has eaten enough popcorn in the last week to kill a pig
• really, really, needs to exercise
• was waved at by an old guy on a 3-wheeled bike on her way home from work while she had the stereo up too loud
• overheard a woman asking a worker at Target, "What song are you playing right now?" They weren't playing any song... or were they? Which one of us is wrong?
• bought another dress she'll never wear
• can't wait to go to the LA County Fair with Sarah and see the goats!
• registered for flute choir. Did you?
• doesn't understand why VH1 Classic is playing a Duran Duran concert that looks like it's from this century, and doesn't understand why she's watching it, and doesn't understand what the hell happened to Simon Le Bon's face
• realized today that she doesn't like baby showers, and in fact, isn't all that comfortable at most parties
• has still not recovered from week one of working from 7-5:30 for four days a week
• really really needs to go to bed
• started writing a story about the "first time" but then mentioned it to her friend Rachel, who remembers saying the word "eww" when she told her about it at the time; "eww" seems like a bad reaction
• will say that it involved a recreation of a scene from a movie, which at the time, she didn't realize, because she hadn't (and still hasn't) seen the movie
• is instead working on a Stewart Copeland story (by "working on" she means, cultivating the idea in her brain and not yet on paper. As if she works with paper anymore)
• is for some reason irritated by Patrick's ability to sleep anywhere, including now, on the couch, while she's watching the stupid Duran Duran concert on VH1
• is watching a marathon of "Canada's Next Top Model," which Patrick finds to be more "civilized" than America's Next Top Model
• listened to Patrick state that Canadian TV is "so Canadian" and laughed her head off
• sweated her way through tonight's performance of BAD PENNY
• start[ed] her new job on September 8
• is about to have lunch from Fake Tito's
• wonders why 7 pounds feels like 20
• saw "The Rocker" last night - cute but not amazing
• wonders where the scruffy teens walking down her street came from
• may be suffering from Olympics overload
• is reading a silly sci-fi novel that's like 1,000 pages long and loving it
• thinks Peter F. Hamilton is Robert Heinlein minus the misogyny and the civics lessons
• needs to eat something
• wishes Patrick a most happy birthday: August 11
• wonders what's going on with the women's USA gymnastics team??
• LOVES the Chinese women's team!
• met Anne Frank the cat last night and is in love
• made Bo laugh (not a euphemism) about 100 times last night; he returned the favor
• has 38.5 days worth of music on her iPod and wants more
• better back up her music
• is gonna go to Super Mex tonight for dinner with her niece and nephew and their parents
• just got a call from someone who called her "Porsha"
• wonders if this is the same person who rang the bell earlier today
• wonders who rang the doorbell a few moments ago
• wonders if whoever rang the doorbell noticed her hiding behind the computer monitors or heard her laughing while re-reading David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day"
• wonders if 12:00 is too late in the day to still be wearing her nightgown - nah
• thinks it's kind of interesting when she runs into people she knows rather superficially who have been reading her blog and those people seem embarrassed, or confused, or annoyed
• would like to know some of those people better
• has started telling people at work that she's transferring, and has been pleasantly surprised by the stunned and sad reactions
• wonders if her co-workers are amazing actors
• will miss AC, LD, EC, and her 24" monitor the most
• wants one of those little hats the athletes from Brazil wore in the opening ceremony for the Olympics
• caught Laura Bush (not George!) checking her watch during the opening ceremony for the Olympics
• will be doing the lights/sound/slides (!) at City Garage for BAD PENNY through September 7
• is working on "The Emperor and the Bird of Paradise"
• had a huge crush on Ian Clarke when he was at the flute convention in San Diego and how she got all nervous when she got to speak with him! No, that doesn't sound familiar at all
• spent almost $200 at Fresh & Easy tonight
• is still waiting for Fresh & Easy to launch their ad campaign using the Eagles' "Take It Easy" as their theme song
• cannot shop at Fresh & Easy without humming "Take It Easy" and yes, that's an incredibly annoying song
• is carpooling tomorrow to Santa Monica with Bo and once again finds herself in the driver seat (not a euphemism - unfortunately!)
• wonders who will catch that "unfortunately" first?
• wonders if they will take it seriously?
• would like for them to not take it seriously
• when are these damn bangs going to grow the fuck out?
• is going back to work now
• hopes the slide projector at City Garage was destroyed in the earthquake
• had a great concert on Sunday
• is listening to "Hands Off... She's Mine," by the English Beat
• is back on the 5/40 work schedule
• will be visiting Santa Cruz (actually, Aptos) by way of San Jose
• wonders how long it will take for these ill-advised bangs to grow out
• isn't used to Bluetooth yet - it kinda hurts her earlost her Bluetooth earpiece
• drove part of the way home from Culver City last night with a purple piece of paper under the wiper on the passenger side of her car; she exited the freeway at Rosecrans, thinking it was a parking ticket or message from a secret admirer only to find out that it was an advertisement for an insurance company - THEN - upon getting back on the freeway, she was the second car behind the cops doing a traffic break, and she thought that her detour and that stupid piece of paper may have saved her from a sure death in a fiery car crash (cue "Motorcrash" by the Sugarcubes)... except the break was for just barely getting started road construction near the 110. Oh well. Slow for the cone zone!
• wants popcorn for breakfast
• found out that her uncle used to cut the hair of the nuns (not a euphemism) who lived at the church she's playing at tomorrow
• learned just the other night that "Nice & Easy" isn't just a marketing ploy
• likes the word "carroms" (I think it's the name of a fIREHOSE song)
• has a friend who adopted a kitten from these people who named the kitty "Anne Frank"
• thinks naming a cat "Anne Frank" is pretty funny
• will probably name her next cat either Molly Hatchet or Dale Nixon
• still thinks Dave Grohl is a gum-chewing girlie man
• thinks kitties should have last names (hello, Frances "Smush" Palma"!)
• made the same mistake again another month in a row - making her idiocy at least a year long - yay for me!
• is reading 1984 and a biography on Walt Disney at the same time
• is finding horrifying similarities to her current work situation in both books
• wonders what kind of a person gets a version of "Sexy Back" for their license plate
• is banging her head against the wall at work (thanks, kid, now all I'm thinking about is the sex life of pigs, a topic I had been really good at avoiding until now)
• is pretty much too bummed out by work to do much blogging lately
• misses you a little
• knows the feeling isn't mutual
• didn't mean to imply that just because she doesn't have $1,200 for a new piccolo, also isn't that upset about it; her plastic and wood combination piece o' crap is surprisingly in tune and relatively easy to play, it just has to be warmed up and ready to go
• can't swing "That's a-Plenty" and is glad Joe is playing flute 1
• will be less than five minutes late to work tomorrow if it kills her
• thinks it would be really un-funny if she gets in a car accident tomorrow morning on the way to Downey
• honks at people who do stupid things on the road and doesn't appreciate it when those people get pissed off. Drive right or face the consequences, jerks
• thinks her boss should call her when she's not going to be in the office in the AM and there are no appointments on the calendar but her boss apparently feels otherwise
• wants to go to the OC fair and drool over the goats
• saw a beautiful leather bag at the mall last night... made out of goat leather. Can't do it, sorry
• is glad there's a new season of Project Runway but has been disappointed by the winners of some of the other reality shows she watches - so she's not gonna get too attached to anybody (especially Kelli, the trash bag lady, and the cup dress dude)
• just bought a bag identical to one she already owns
• has decided she doesn't need an iPhone or the extra charges for the data charges but promises to continue to drool over yours
• finally had dinner at Versailles yesterday
• is uninterested in laundry, housework, paying bills, practicing or even taking a shower, and would like instead to just lay on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn, a cold drink, and a book
• is watching all the people going to the open house across the street and is starting to miss her neighbors already
• is, but shouldn't be, and rather wishes she wasn't, strangely attracted to Scissor Sister's version of "Comfortably Numb"
• walked into this guy's office the other day at work and he was listening to Maroon 5. If she didn't think he was a giant tool before, she sure does now
• is listening to a bunch of Pink Floyd covers
• thinks that in the photo currently plastered all over iTunes, Beck looks like he should be holding a giant lollipop and wearing a sailor hat

• would give it to you if she could but she borrowed it
• doesn't have $1,200 to buy a slightly used piccolo
• is looking for the power button
• hasn't had a diet coke in two days and seems to think this is something of which she can be proud
• was about to embark on a marathon day of laundry when, during the very first load, the damn machine overflowed and Patrick is out there now, trying to fix it; meanwhile, the driveway is full of lots of soapy water
• is in love with the creamy chicken soup at Souplantationwonders why they keep changing the goddamn soup at Souplantation
• has a headache, a head full of snot and a fever
• can't believe she just wrote "head full of snot"
• is experiencing Internet lagtime because Patrick is downloading a stupid John McLaughlin record
• thinks "latency" is a really cool word, too
• found out that a guy she knows knows another guy she knows in another town and is strangely obsessed with "small world!" sappiness
• has a fever and a runny nose
• had a work-induced crappy day
• told her co-worker whose name rhymes with "Irene" to "go home on time for a change"
• kind of wants a MacBook
• bought $56 in pens and Post-its at Staples tonight
• has an odd fixation on pens and Post-its right now
• thinks her neighbor's Scion sounds like a fancy lawn mower
• : putting one foot in front of the other since 1972
• was told today that there is a direct connection between people with sinus troubles and the weight of the sadness that we all carry around with us
• has made the same mistake, month after month, on almost the same day, for about a year now
• wishes she knew somebody named "Elliot Sneen"
• : unintentionally insulting people she hasn't seen for 20 years ("I still got it!")
• is wondering when it would be a good time to wash the dishes that have been floating in what Patrick calls "primordial soup" for about 3 days already
• has a sick husband
• has a tummy ache
• had the high school reunion dream again
• finally realizes that being a loser doesn't make you special (David Spade, Kathy Griffin excepted from this rule)
• once told a 17-year old kid to "get the fuck out of my car" and then drove away in a haze of rubber and never thought about him again
• one part of that story is a lie
• still hasn't joined a gym - or a yoga class - or ridden her bike in an month - or gone for a walk - or stopped drinking diet Cokes - or upped her water intake - or eaten more vegetables - or practiced in a week
• reported the Yard House in LB to the Department of Public Health for possibly giving her and Patrick food poisoning
• is watching the kid across the street play solo catch and kind of wishes she could go out and join him, except she sucks at catch
• is not enjoying Peter Sagal's book on Vice as much as she wanted tothought Peter Sagal's book was a huge waste of time and now doesn't even like listening to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me (unless Tom Bodett is on)
• was almost run over yesterday, twice, and neither time involved a Frito Lay truck (and thank God for that, because Rachel and Melissa were nowhere to be seen)
• wants to know when Culver City became the office supply store mecca of the world (there are at least 3 within 1/2 a mile)
• wants to know where Kathy Griffin got that orange cover for her iPhone
• wants Tito's chips and salsa
• had a pretty good idea when she started the Stewart Copeland business but now is stuck and can't think of where to go next with it
• wants to stop starting sentences in her head that begin, "Irene Casarez Palma..."

Another one.

My wild and weird dreams had subsided a bit for awhile, but started up again last night.

Brief description (I swear):

I'm driving my car in a mall, and no one finds this unusual. I pull up to a jewelry store, but am directed by the security guard to the "elevator" that is nearby. I park my car near the store, and walk to the elevator, which is a round room with a seat in the center where the passengers sit, facing out. A woman attempts to get on the elevator but doesn't have the $1 required; I offer to pay her fare and she gets on and thanks me. The elevator moves along back to the jewelry store.

In the jewelry store, I show the guy working there a clock I've brought with me and want to sell to him. It's pretty ugly, but still in the box, which has an orange price sticker of $44.23 on it. The clock itself is about 8 inches high, and in the shape of an architectural pediment. It's a Frank Gehry design.

The jewelry store guy gives me a long-winded and forgotten speech about clock design and profitability and ultimately announces that he can only offer me $1 for the clock. He presents me with a complex spreadsheet of figures and graphs that show the depreciation of the clock over time. I explain that I was not looking to make a profit; the clock had been a gift but I didn't want it anymore, and didn't feel right throwing or giving it away. I accept his $1 and leave the store.

Later I'm at the home of an old boyfriend who shall remain nameless. I'm asleep in his bed but he's not there. I only know which boyfriend it was because I recognize the possessions in the room, which is new to me. There's a bookshelf behind the bed that has a huge quantity of books and other items that I remember from when I last really knew this person and never really expected to see again, and the room is large and warm and the bed is large and warm, and has a beautiful red quilt on it, which I'm snuggled in.

Then the boyfriend's mother, who I also never expected to see again, comes and asks me about the clock, which I had just sold for $1. She's not angry, just curious. She was a nice lady.

And then I woke up, curled up on my right side (bad pregnant lady!) with my Boppy Total Body Pillow. The kitty had commandeered the top pillow part, and we were both pressed pretty firmly into Patrick's back, with lots of blankets covering us both. It was sweet. The dream was weird but I've read that dreaming about clocks means you're afraid you're running out of time, and that seems about accurate, considering several different things I've been talking about.

Then I realized that Patrick's alarm hadn't gone off and that he needed to get in the shower before me, so I woke him up and went back to sleep for at least 20 more minutes. I wish I could do that again right now.

Resume

I was looking at my resume this morning, and realized that it's finally time to remove all my retail experience. It's been 10 years since I worked in a bookstore, and wow, that kind of sucks. Because it means I'll never be a kid again, right?

Not that I'd really want to work in a bookstore now - the hours, the wages, the uncertainty - but I miss the fun of it. The stores I worked in, for the most part, were full of fun, smart, interesting (and sometimes crazy and/or idiotic) people, and I only had to work with a couple of (known) drug users. I miss the customers, too, and that's weird, because I usually don't really feel comfortable talking to strangers (Patrick and I took our first Lamaze class on Monday, and when I saw that the teacher intended to go around the room and get us all to introduce ourselves and to also talk about our pregnancy, I almost asked Patrick if we could leave). And hey, let's be honest, I miss the books.

Anyway, before I remove it forever (unless of course some day I reapply for another bookstore, if any are still around), here's the retail section, which really only includes my last bookstore job. If it doesn't sound all that impressive, I had trimmed it down years ago and removed the jobs I had right after high school. And maybe it's not all that impressive. My experiences at Crown, Bookstar, and 20/20 Video have already been excised because that shit was so loooooong ago:

January 1998-September 2001
Boutique and Operations Manager
Rizzoli Bookstore
Santa Monica / Beverly Hills

Ah, it's not much, is it. My functions, in a nutshell, were: I was a manager, therefore I managed. I had keys, and the combination to the safe. I added up all the money and credit card slips and counted the registers. I made the schedule. I tracked the sales of my boutique items (cards, t-shirts, gift items, etc.). I was amazed at the hand-drawn sales history graphs that my store manager would painstakingly draw out every week. I stood around and joked and talked and fooled around with my co-workers (I made an awesome giant pencil hat for my friend Bo, which I think I still have somewhere, as well as a picture of him wearing it). I shelved books. I read books. I created intricate displays of pens and pins and t-shirts and boxed cards and whatever else we were selling in the boutique. I cleared printer jams. I got parking tickets. I worked on holidays and weekends. I approved store returns (and once, famously, did not approve a store return, and the asshole who was trying to return about $500 worth of books without a receipt made me cry). I met famous people. I helped Eric Stoltz find the one book we had in the entire store on divorce. I talked to the homeless people who wandered in occasionally. I gossiped about my strange co-workers. I made very good friends, and a few enemies. I slept in the daytime and worked in the nighttime, I worked with students, housewives... drug users, artists, musicians, actors. No offense to anybody else but the actors were the most entertaining. Funny, that.

OK, so that's over.

The NY Times reports that Tom DeLay has been found guilty of money laundering

Here's a quote from Mr. DeLay, as reported in the story (click on the title of today's post and you can read the whole thing):

"The criminalization of politics undermines our very system.”

So true, sir! And how do you suppose we should go about getting the criminals out of politics? Is there a New York Times article on how many politicians have been found guilty of a crime (any crime) in the last 20 years?

Dancing with the stars, or whoever

Last night was the finale of Dancing with the Stars, a show I (as I have explained before) started watching solely to have something to discuss with my mother (who loves shows like this), but of which I became a fan on my own. I didn't actually watch the whole finale - I felt a lot of ambivalence about it, though all along I've been voting for Jennifer Grey (and Margaret Cho, when she was still on). Instead I flipped back and forth between DWTS and a rerun of the first episode of the American version of "Top Gear" (loved it).

Dancing with the Stairs is total silliness, what with the wacky costumes, horrible music, even more horrible Brooke Burke, and completely ridiculous judging, but it's also, results shows aside, total fun. I kind of hate to admit it, but I do like it and I get a little bit invested in it, every season.

Anyway, so this season was full of so-called controversy - a couple of talented celebrities were voted off (Audrina Patridge, Brandy) seemingly too early, and Bristol Palin was kept on until the final. Bristol was repeatedly dinged for lacking in personality or not showing any emotion in her face during her dances, and when she finally showed some toward the end, unfortunately, it was an ugly, vindictive personality.

Hey, I'm not really surprised. Her comments about "haters" and "giving the middle finger" to those who wanted to see her fail - those comments go right along with her obvious lack of maturity. Grow up a little, Bristol, and yes, go home to your kid. Maybe get a real job and some actual life experience. See a Broadway show. Stay off of Facebook. Have a grown-up relationship. Have a life of your own that's not connected to your mom's career. Wouldn't that be something?

(I love that she can give the finger to the haters and at the same time feel "blessed" by an experience she really didn't deserve. And God loves ALL your fingers, Bristol. I guess.)

As a dancer, the thing is, yes, she showed improvement, but she was never really good enough, and this is not a hateful statement. Maybe she's one of those people who think just showing up entitles her to a trophy. Like my niece's first soccer team... when she was five. Newsflash, Bristol: you're not good enough. Yes, she tried. We all try - and we all sometimes fail. It's a fact of life, babe.

I will say that she looked great in her practice clothes - she's a pretty girl with gorgeous hair, and in a hooded sweatshirt and capri length leggings and fancy dance shoes, she looked prettier than she ever did in the strangely tailored sparkly dresses on the show.

The thing that's been bothering me is, I've heard/read a lot of comments about how Jennifer Grey shouldn't have won because she's a "trained dancer." She made "Dirty Dancing" in 1986 or '87, and as far as I can tell, the rest of her career includes no other dancing roles. You do the math - that's not exactly a lifetime of training. Yes, she could've had some private dance experience, but so can anybody. It's not "Dancing with the Normal People" (but if they make that show, can I be on it? and will you vote for me?) or "Dancing with the Bitter and Entitled," it's Dancing with the Stars. Those people are expected to be able to perform, and most of them work it out because they have the talent and the personality to pull it off. That's what being a celebrity is about. People like David Hasselhoff, Kurt Warner, and Florence Henderson are interesting because they've accomplished something in their field (come on, you know you loved Knight Rider).

In the end, it's a stupid dancing competition. The prize is useless. I loved getting to see Jennifer Grey again: she's a beautiful woman and a cancer survivor. I hope winning helps her career - I would love to see her in a movie again - but I also hope losing teaches Bristol something about humility, and working hard. Showing up doesn't mean you win, sweetheart, it just means you were there.

From the list of things I don't want to hear while at my desk:

• "Push It," by Salt-N-Pepa
• My co-worker moaning and groaning to herself over her inability to pass an online practice test for a higher-level secretarial position.